


cracked and cared for

by numerical



Category: NCT (Band), WayV (Band)
Genre: Insecurity, M/M, Musings on the Nature of Love, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Sex as Communication, Talking During Sex, Vulnerability, also actual communications
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:07:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27236242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/numerical/pseuds/numerical
Summary: It's something that the members of NCT joke about: How everybody, sooner or later, has a crush on Winwin.Some stronger than others, but it's true. Ten has been here from the beginning, trained with almost all of them. He didn't get it back then, because sure - Winwin is cute, and sweet. But he also keeps his distance, and is difficult to befriend, on a guttural, real level.So Ten doesn't want to feel special about the fact that when he has a shit day, Winwin will knock on his door over any other, climb into his bed rather than anyone elses.
Relationships: Dong Si Cheng | WinWin/Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten
Comments: 17
Kudos: 176





	cracked and cared for

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Tiếng Việt available: [nứt vỡ và hàn gắn](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27709880) by [whitemuffin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitemuffin/pseuds/whitemuffin)



> Happy WINWIN DAY!!! 
> 
> Clearly this day deserves philosophical, introspective smut. Right?
> 
> (Title is from Ben Howard's "In Dreams", which was on loop while I wrote this)

* * *

They got paired up to work together, for this new project. In the briefing, they were told that they were free to choose, but there were strong recommendations. So when Winwin came up to him, holding a camera and a sweet smile, Ten knew what answer was expected from him. It wasn't difficult to comply, at all, not when Winwin made playful, outraged noises at his teasing.

It was meant to be easy and fun and explorative. Instead, by day two, Ten was bitching and Winwin was withdrawn, both of them frustrated. They had a few more days to get on it, before they would actually be filmed, and there was just no way they will be able to produce something good, something that Ten could be proud of, if Winwin was going to cringe from his touch all the time, if he didn't engage and sink his teeth into the project. He couldn't expain it, how it felt like acting to a blind mirror, to give and give and get nothing back.

They were in that practice room until lights out, late enough that everyone else had long gone home. Ten was walking on his gums, tension coiling up inside of him.

"Just do what you'd do, and I'll mirror it," Sicheng offered.

"Is that all you can do," Ten asked, tone vicious, and ignored the way Winwin looked slapped across the face with hurt. "Then fucking. Do it." 

The tension snapped, at that hurt look, at the lack of experience Winwin had with work like this, honest and raw and held closely between two people. Not stylised, but open, a dialogue between bodies. And then Ten was on him, had his waist clamped between his thighs and his upper arms under his palms, pressed to the cold wood floor. Winwin gasped, head tilting back, fingers grasping at thin air, and Ten could feel a grin spreading across his face as the idea hit him. So basic, so obvious, something that would make them familiar with each other's bodies, capable of improvising together, or working off each other's improvisation.

"We should fuck," he said, and watched Winwin's eyes widen, his lips part in a gasp half-surprise and half... something else. Watched him writhe, under him, and felt strangely powerful. It hadn't felt like a beginning.

And yet, in the months between that and now, Ten had fallen in love with him.

It's something that the members in NCT joke about: How everybody, sooner or later, has a crush on Winwin. Some stronger than others, but it's true. Ten has been here from the beginning, trained with almost all of them. He didn't get it back then, because sure - Winwin is cute, and sweet. But he also keeps his distance, and is difficult to befriend, on a guttural, real level.

So Ten doesn't want to feel special about the fact that when he has a shit day, Winwin will knock on his door over any other, climb into his bed rather than anyone elses. That Winwin will join in on his fun, even when it crosses some boundaries. Ten can tease and poke at him, and Winwin will groan and hide his face in the crook of his arm, and then, out of view of everyone and everything, in the privacy of their dorm, he'll stand close and lean in and Ten will know to hold him by the small of his back and pull him in close enough that he can hide his face in the crook of Ten's neck instead. 

It's the privilege of giving a dude regular orgasms, at regular intervals, starting with that fight in the practice room, when Winwin had looked up at him, parted his lips, and said, voice thready, "Okay."

He'd closed his eyes, and finally, finally, lost the tension that had sprung up every time Ten so much as touched him. And touching him, all warm smooth skin over wiry muscle, was almost wondrous. Ten had let his hands wander: over Winwin's sides, down his arms and up again over his belly to his neck. His chin, his cheeks, along the curve of his eyebrows, just tracing the lines of him. 

"What are you doing?"

"Introducing my hands to your body," Ten had said, in his shitty, accented Chinese, and watched a smile press Winwin's lips back against his teeth. There was a tiny nod, too, like that idea, more than any others that Ten had produced today, made sense to him. Winwin's hands were warm on his back, around the nape of his neck, in his hair. It made his still, for a few seconds, just feeling the novelty of being touched like this. With purpose, with sensuality. With a clear goal in mind.

"Introducing my lips to your lips," he added, like an afterthought, leaning down. Again, that tiny smile, then a tilt up, and oh. The kiss was an experiment, and if Ten had been a scientist, he'd have wanted to bottle it, replicate it for the world, figure out the chemistry and sell the formula for billions. Winwin hummed into it, followed his lead: lips on lips, mouths opening, and here's the dance that Ten had tried to choreograph all along, perfectly in synch, then falling apart. Coming back together, wildly, Ten's hands had tightened on Winwin's neck, his waist, hips grinding together. It felt simple, then - the interplay of action and reaction, almost mindless. 

It isn't simple now, not when Winwin follows him into the room that Ten technically shares with Hendery. In practice, Ten has the room to himself, considering how much time Hendery spends in Lucas' bed nowadays. Except for days like these, when Winwin follows him in, and follows his orders. "If you want to stay you have to change out of your nasty clothes." 

More often than not, Winwin ends up in one of Ten's shirts and boxers. More often than that, Winwin ends up naked, first. It's funny, how easy it is for Ten to make Winwin take his clothes off, when he's such a prude in front of a camera. As if Ten wasn't committing every inch of his skin to memory just the same, waiting to trace his fingers and his mouth all over him. 

They lock the door, turn off their phones, and in that little bubble of quiet, Winwin comes to him. Ten has him face down on the bed, spreadeagled and panting, when it happens. His muscles go tight under Ten's hands, his back and arms stiff. It's sudden, and it passes, but it's enough for Ten to stop. 

"Don't-" Winwin says, into the pillow, and pushes his ass into Ten's hands. It's shameless, and wonderful, and Ten wants to bite at him, make him groan all over, but. 

"What's wrong?"

There's a prolongued sigh, and then Winwin fully collapses into the mattress. "It's stupid," he starts, and Ten hums. He does bite at his butt, because it's there, and he can, and also because it will shake Winwin out of feeling ashamed and tangled up in whatever is happening in his mind. So Ten can't fuck it out of him. That's fine - not all problems can be solved that easily.

Winwin cringes, a full-body movement on him, as always. He's so expressive with his body, when you know to watch for it, all long limbs and long torso and hidden gestures. Ten prods at him, hand at his hip encouraging him to lay on his back. Whatever just happened, Ten wants to be able to watch Winwin's face while he explains. If he knows him, and oh, after years of training together and months and months of learning his body inside out, Ten knows him well, it'll come out in fits and starts, hesitant and slow.

It's okay. Ten loves him. He slides down, to lie next to him, body against body, skin against skin, a primal sort of comfort, and pokes at Winwin's cheek with his finger. "Come on," he prods, "are you upset that Kun ate all the snacks again?"

Winwin rolls his eyes, but he can't hide the small uptick to his lips.

"Then did Hendery steal your favourite pair of underwear?"

Winwin shakes his head. He stops, then turns onto his side, facing Ten. It should be vulnerable, being this naked with someone, when not actively having sex, but it isn't. Winwin has stretchmarks on his hip, just two or three bright lines across, like lightening, and Ten thumbs over them with the hand that isn't propping him up. Watches Winwin exhale, shakily. "It's nothing like that."

"Ok," Ten replies. He wiggles a little, knocks their knees together, intertwines their legs. It's all a slow process of becoming entangled. 

"It's stupid," Winwin explains, and shrugs. "Today, during Taeil-hyung's and Haechan's thing, it was all..." 

"Hm," Ten agrees, because he heard of it, even though he wasn't there. He would have liked to be: he is now part of the long line of NCT members who have fallen for Winwin, after all. "Must have been awkward." 

"It was," Winwin exclaims, and then he pokes Ten in the chest, hard. Right where Ten's tattoo covers his scar, as if the air will go out of Ten if he punctures him there. "It was all about how everybody loves me."

Ten blinks at him, a hidden tease. "And that's a problem why?"

"Because loving someone shouldn't be a _joke_."

When they started this, he almost felt like laughing. He had Winwin shirtless and blushing under him. He'd been sitting between his legs with his mouth on Winwin's dick before long, and that felt like power more than anything else. Something in the way Winwin trusted him, let himself be manhandled and guided and listened to every twitch of Ten's body - it made Ten's head spin. Made him want to ask for more, to grab the opportunity with both hands and never let it go.

Instead, he pulled Winwin's knee up to his chest, spread him apart on the practice room floor, watched his back arch and his head bow back with pleasure. Slicked one finger in spit and pushed in and in and listened to the soft keen Winwin gave at the intrusion, before his hips ground back into it with a surprised gasp.

It's strange, reaching into another human being, looking for pleasure.

It isn't strange at all, to look for reassurance in another person, about something as vulnerable as love. 

They hadn't fucked that night - Winwin had come, helpless and quivering, when Ten pushed a second slick finger in and sucked hard. He'd been a lazy mess, after, lacked the coordination to even give a measly handjob. But he held Ten, kissed him despite the taste of come in his mouth, and after that, there was an understanding between them. Ten didn't gloat about how right he'd been, but he wanted to. 

Instead, he watched as Winwin wiped himself down with a spare t-shirt, and called a car. The next day, they didn't talk about it. But Ten choreographed, and Winwin followed. And when he wasn't following along, he was sharing his thoughts, his opinions, the vulernable underbelly that he doesn't dare expose too much.

Then they fucked again. And the cycle repeated.

Now, Ten knows to lean in, and gently, gently, press a kiss to Winwin's mouth, to draw him in and let him feel all the affection that Ten can't help but shower him in. They separate slowly, almost hesitantly. Winwin blinks, coming back to himself, and shivers. Ten feels his skin draw up in goosebumps. "It's not a joke, though? They do all love you." 

Winwin makes that uncomfortable movement again, the all body shiver-shrug. "It doesn't feel like it. It feels like they're making fun of me, somehow. And I'm not smart enough to get the joke."

"They do love you," Ten repeats, "Love can feel really uncomfortable sometimes. Like how I love Kun, but that doesn't stop me from bullying him a lot."

Winwin nods, slowly. "Still. They also. Taeil said I'm cold. Not easy to be close to."

Ten pulls back, the air a cold shock between their bodies. He presses his hand to Winwin's cheek in show, grins. "Feels pretty hot to me." 

Winwin huffs, pokes him in the chest again. "Not with you."

"Oh," Ten hooks his claws into that, "am I special?"

There's a break, a few seconds in which Winwin doesn't say anything, and Ten's heart drops heavy and cold into this stomach with dread - that Winwin knows about his feelings, that he's not any different than the members who Winwin feels make fun of him. That Ten has used him, somehow, that this, the easy intimacy between them, might be taken as a joke. A punchline.

Instead, Winwin moves in close again, Ten's hand tangled uncomfortably between their bodies, and kisses him. Hard, fierce. Heated. "You are," he says, and it's so cheesy that Ten wants to die. "Have been." 

Ten wants to be the one to hide his face in the crook of his elbow like Winwin does when he's flustered. But he doesn't. He kisses back, open-mouthed and filthy, because the boy he's in love with is a closet romantic, is sentimental and sweet and wants a wedding with his family there, wants children, wants everything Ten dreams of, when he allows himself to. Ten would never admit it, but Winwin... Winwin just talks about it, freely. 

They're not vulernable about the same things, but that doesn't matter, when they cover each other's soft spots so well. 

"I'll show you love," Ten says, and he can't keep his face straight when he pushes Winwin onto his back and climbs onto his lap. It's a relief when Winwin just sits up to kiss him, close and warm and laughing against Ten's lips.

It's only when Ten takes him inside his body, sits on his cock like he was meant for it and throws his head back, and Winwin laughs again, overwhelmed and sweet. He thrusts up, makes Ten groan with it, and reaches for him, strokes him to completion. Ten taught him so well. So well. 

They're a tacky with sweat, still breathing hard, when Winwin traces the tattoo again, softly this time. "Do _you_ love me?"

Ten looks at him, dark eyes and puffy lips and he does. He does, and he has just said so a thousand times with his body. What are words, compared to that? 

"Yes."

Winwin smiles at him, doesn't look shocked or surprised or anything but deeply reassured. Ten frowns at him, because he can. Because he feels safe here, his confession hanging in the air between them. He can be demanding, and bratty, and too much. Winwin will take it. 

"Aren't you going to say it back?"

Winwin's smile curls into something fond and forgiving, and his hand wanders, pressing flat to the center of Ten's chest. "Let me show you."

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this fic, pls leave me a comment or, like. a single sunshine emoji :D


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